One of the many cost saving benefits of managed IT services is having the proper tools to effectively monitor an entire network for issues. This enables BrightWire Networks technicians to detect, identify, and resolve issues before they start to affect users.

A lot of computer and network issues don't just happen abruptly. Many of them show early warning signs and sit dormant for a short time before most users even notice. For the vast majority of issues, they are much easier to resolve at this stage.  I had my car in for scheduled maintenance this week and after the scheduled work was complete, the service manager went over additional items they found during their work.  For instance, the brake pads are down to 4mm and they recommend replacement at 2mm; he explained that probably means another 15,000 miles before the front pads should be replaced.  I appreciate that information, because left unchecked, I'd know the brakes were bad when the grinding noises started.  Now I have a little forewarning and can budget some time and money to make a necessary repair.

One simple example of this is the system logs that servers generate.  Over many months, these logs will eventually accumulate to the point that a shortage of available disk space on the server itself becomes a performance problem.  These logs do not delete themselves automatically, so they must be deleted manually or with an automated script.

Another example is that hard drives have a monitoring system that attempts to anticipate major failures. While unpredicted failures can still happen, there is a chance that issues can be detected in advanced, which means you can prepare and have a new hard drive ready long before the current one fails.  We monitor for these types of events on both servers and desktops.  When a predictive failure is detected, we can replace the damaged drive before it fails.  Ironically, an undetected drive failure on a laptop or desktop PC is often more of a problem than on a server because servers have multiple drives with built-in redundancy that enable them to function even if a single drive fails completely.  Laptops and desktops do not have this ability and a drive failure can mean more downtime and potentially lost data.  It's much easier for us to transfer a backup image on a still functioning laptop to a new hard drive than it is to rebuild everything from scratch.  I can recall at least half a dozen times over the years that we've detected a drive failure early and saved a lot of time and hassle by completely the repair work as a scheduled event rather than a hair-on-fire emergency!

Other issues such as network connectivity and stability issues, antivirus updates and statuses, Windows Update install failures, CPU and memory issues, and general event and error tracking can provide insights and find issues before they create surprise downtime.

And even when undetected problems do arise, we are typically able able to solve them faster with an array of diagnostic tools already in place that provide insight and historical system information.

This means smoother operations, more productivity, and fewer (and shorter!) technical support calls.

Are you looking to greatly reduce the number of time-crushing, expense-generating computer issues that your company faces? Give us a call at 360-528-6017 and ask us how we can cost-effectively manage and monitor your entire IT infrastructure!